We mean business

If you are a small or medium business, forget it, you’re on your own.

Hello, welcome to the Big Business Bosses’ Ministerial Buddy Hotline. Your call is important to us. If you have your Big Business Bosses’ membership number, please key it in now.

We are experiencing unusually high call volumes from Big Business Bosses, not surprisingly really, what with years of misery ahead. It’s either us or the Samaritans. But if you are an old friend of Vince Cable’s from his days at Shell, press one. If you are from GlaxoSmithKline and want to speak about dutasteride-tamsulosin hydrochloride, press two for David Willetts, as he’s probably the only one round here who can spell it.

If you would like to sell arms to a Middle Eastern despot, you might have left it a little late. If you would like to bail out a southern European country, press six, and pronto. If you would like to build a bungalow in every field in the Cotswolds, no need to leave a message, just go ahead. If you are phoning from News International, you’ll probably have heard all the messages on the answerphone already. If you are phoning from the Cern faster-than-light particle accelerator, please phone again yesterday.

If you are a Small or Medium Business, forget it, you’re on your own. If you are worried about traffic cones, please phone Sir John Major. It won’t help with the cones, but it’ll make us feel better about this whole stupid idea.